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Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commissioners under fire from sport anglers will help host a reception Thursday at the Pacific Northwest Sportsmen’s Show.

The reception comes on the heels this past week of a sharply worded demand by a legislator for the resignation of all four commission members who defied a plan to remove gill-nets from the lower Columbia River.
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It hasn’t been easy for House Speaker Tina Kotek to carry the torch on boosting renter protections. The Portland Democrat has successfully pushed tenant-friendly legislation, much to the chagrin of some area landlords. Last week, when she spoke at a real estate conference, a landlord threatened to finance a candidate to run against her — to which the crowd of property owners and developers cheered, according to The Daily Journal of Commerce.
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Multnomah County human resources officials are investigating County Commissioner Loretta Smith after a staffer leveled a host of complaints, including that she used county resources for her campaign, bullied her employees and forced a staffer to use vacation time to work on Smith’s campaign.
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The numbers are shocking: Perpetrators have sexually or domestically assaulted more than half of Oregon’s women and girls. Oregon families face some of the least affordable childcare in the nation. And Oregon women have the highest rates of depression in the country.
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A former U.S. Bank employee filed a $632,000 lawsuit against her former employer this week, saying she was fired in part because she complained that playing “hangman” as a department game to get prizes was racially insensitive.

Belinda Jackson, who is African American, says she also complained that the timing of the game — during Black History Month in February 2016 — was particularly offensive.
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With the start of the 79th Legislative Assembly, Oregon faces a set of challenges unlike any we’ve faced before. Solving them will mean coming together with courage, optimism, and a commitment to protecting Oregon values.

This session, we’ll tackle a $1.8 billion budget deficit caused by the longstanding flaws in our revenue system, craft a statewide transportation package, and do everything we can to resist the destructive actions of the Trump Administration and Republicans in Congress.
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Once upon a time, it was common to hunt, fish and be a member of the Sierra Club.

Today the bond between the conservation community and sportsman often feels splintered, the coalition of hikers, hunters and anglers fragmented by wedge issues and the urban-rural divide.
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Aw, shucks. We were just kidding. We weren’t really gonna sell the Elliott State Forest despite all the time and money invested in the proposal by Indian tribes, private timber companies, the Department of Forestry and a small army of timber cruisers. Such might summarize the press release from the Oregon Land Board on Dec. 13, 2016.
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-An advocate of the program says families who earn too much to get federal grants deserve the assistance-

To great fanfare and national attention, state lawmakers created the Oregon Promise tuition assistance program in 2015, widely billed at the time as free community college for in-state high school graduates.
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A Lane County employee has filed a complaint with the state of Oregon claiming to have been racially profiled in Eugene last month by a Lane County sheriffs deputy, and accusing the county of not having a legally required racial profiling complaint system.
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My opponent in last years Oregon attorney generals race, Ellen Rosenblum, has joined 14 other extreme left-wing attorneys general in denouncing President Trumps executive order titled Protection of the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry Into the United States. Rosenblum calls Trumps order unconstitutional, un-American and unlawful.
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Were tired of the bickering over logging. Tired of people talking past one another: Logging is good No, its bad

Lets replace the rhetoric with facts. Compare the benefits of logging against the costs. If the facts show that the benefits exceed the costs, cut the trees down; if not, let them stand.
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-As with many projects like this, they found more questions than answers.-

In July 1945 members of the City Club of Portland issued a 17-page report on “The Negro in Portland.”

The club looked at various issues, including their own research showing that black residents, who made up less than 2 percent of Multnomah County’s population at the time, represented 13.2 percent of those sent to the state penitentiary.
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Local residents are asked to weigh in on the 2017-19 budget, which is $1.8 billion in the red.

How much is too much, or too little, to pay for schools? For human services? For prisons?

Local residents will get an opportunity on Saturday, Feb. 11, to weigh in on those questions when the Oregon Legislature’s budget-writing team brings its statewide road show to Portland Community College.
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Speed limits that were increased to 65 mph between Redmond and Madras and east of Bend before being dropped back to 55 mph will go up again next year if Oregon lawmakers dont take action on the issue.

The speed limits across much of Eastern and Central Oregon, approved by the Legislature in 2015, rose in March last year to 65 mph along most of U.S. Highway 97 and on U.S. Highway 20 east of Bend, as well as several less traveled highways to the east.
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Residents in rural Oregon counties may soon be able to pump their own gas at all hours of the day.

Two bills introduced this Legislative session propose expanding the availability of self-service gas stations to 24 hours a day in rural Oregon counties, including Crook and Jefferson counties.
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-Now withdrawn, the bill would have mandated sale of 4,200 acres in Central Oregon-

Conservation groups and elected officials in Oregon breathed a sign of relief following the withdrawal of a House bill that would have mandated the sale of around 4,200 acres of public lands in Central Oregon.
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There’s nothing easy about stopping smoking. Its better to never start.

That’s why Oregon should raise the legal age for buying cigarettes and other tobacco products to 21 from 18. State Rep. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Portland, has proposed legislation that would do so.

Despite the alarming public service ads and parental finger-wagging, young people still light up. How to douse that? Make it harder for people to start. Raise the minimum legal age.
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The Bulletins best-read story online Tuesday wasn’t, strictly speaking, a story at all. It was an editorial, a piece that expresses the opinion of the papers editorial board, and it was headlined Gov. Brown forgets rural Oregon. It was the best-read piece online Wednesday, too.

Its impossible to know why, exactly, some pieces gain more traction online than others, but Ill offer a couple of educated guesses in this case.
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With the January jobs report released Friday by the Labor Department, we know that President Donald Trump took office amid a relatively low unemployment rate it ticked up to 4.8 percent in January, strong job growth 227,000 positions added that month and weak wage growth average hourly earnings up 0.1 percent in January and 2.5 percent over the past year.

There was even some welcome progress in the number of people who count themselves as part of the labor force.
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Oregon and Washington state are teaming up to a get a share of a remediation fund created under a court case against Volkswagen for emissions fraud. The first grants to promote electric cars could come later this year.
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Umatilla County has taken its economic development fund in a new direction, a welcome change after decades of under-the-radar and ineffective economic development that lacked a clear focus.

This year the county received about $300,000 of state lottery dollars to spend on economic development. And as the county pivots to a new way of dispersing it, oversight of the process and clear expectations about the results must be present.
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This winter has many similarities to the winters of 1983 and 1992. If history proves itself again, there will be a dramatic die-off of our game animals. There is one stark difference that accompanies this year and not the previous two disaster years. In 1983 and 1992 the animals were counted after the spring die-off, and the tag numbers were allocated according to the amount of animals that survived the winter. According to the radio, ODFW is going to fly after spring green-up and reassess the number of tags they planned for in the 2017 synopsis. That is how it is suppose to be, but maybe things are not as cut and dried as ODFW is claiming they are.
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For four years, the livestock on Clay Charley’s ranch near White City were living the high life while Charley sat back like a ranching version of Tom Sawyer, getting paid to have someone else feed his cows.

Since 2011 his herd had been feasting on tons of food processing waste from Tree Top’s processing operation in Medford and, later, heaps of scraps of high-end pizza and other organic foods from Amy’s Kitchen in White City.
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Since President Donald Trump signed executive orders denying federal funding to go to sanctuary cities or states, local government leaders have taken a stand of defiance, including in Oregon.
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There was a promising sign last week out of Salem as the Legislature settled down to work: Lawmakers appear to be serious this session about trying to find money-saving options to the state’s troubled public-pension system.

PERS issues grabbed the spotlight as the Senate Workforce Committee met on Wednesday, the official first day of the 2017 session. And the committee’s chair, Portland Democrat Kathleen Taylor, made it clear that the committee would entertain any PERS proposal from legislators.
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City of Corvallis land-use policies in the Timberhill area go before a state hearings officer starting this morning at 9 a.m. in Salem.

Oral arguments before hearings officer John Bagg in the Department of Land Conservation and Development case could extend into Tuesday, LCDC officials said. A decision is expected in late February or March.
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-Now withdrawn, the bill would have mandated sale of 3.3 million acres of land managed by BLM-

Conservation groups and elected officials in Oregon breathed a sigh of relief following the withdrawal of a House bill that would have mandated the sale of around 4,200 acres of public lands in Central Oregon.
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Last year brought the momentous passage of the Clean Electricity and Coal Transition Plan. Is the Legislature up for another big energy bill? Well find out, as environmentalists and clean-energy advocates push for a cap-and-trade style program for Oregon.
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Secretary of State Dennis Richardson on Wednesday announced the formation of a panel that will examine Oregon’s redistricting process.

Redistricting is an obscure but extremely important process that takes place every ten years, after the completion of the U.S. Census. It involves redrawing the boundaries of congressional and legislative districts. The responsibility falls first to the Legislature and, if lawmakers cannot agree, defaults to the secretary of state, Oregon’s top elections official.

-The country has experienced nursing shortages for decades, but an aging population means the problem is about to get much worse.-

Five years ago, my mother was rushed to the hospital for an aneurysm. For the next two weeks, my family and I sat huddled around her bed in the intensive-care unit, oscillating between panic, fear, uncertainty, and exhaustion.
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At Perea Preschool in Memphis, Tennessee, a teacher introduces mango to a circle of 16 4-year-olds for the first time. Another day, the children discover pumpkin during a play activity. Most of these children come from impoverished families where lettuce is considered a luxury item. According to Vicki Sallis Murrell, a professor of counseling, educational psychology, and research at the University of Memphis, parents are making tough choices between a $1 head of lettuce and five boxes of macaroni and cheese.
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-Once upon a time, a summer spent scooping ice cream could pay for a year of college. Today, the average student’s annual tuition is equivalent to 991 hours behind the counter.-

A lot of Internet ink has been spilled over how lazy and entitled Millennials are, but when it comes to paying for a college education, work ethic isn’t the limiting factor.
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Rep. John Lively wants the state to give free copies of birth certificates to the homeless while the state hospital superintendent testifies that he needs better legal authority to automatically assist discharged patients with federal disability benefits.
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-New legislation would create an interim task force to delve into creating such a system.-

The recent study by the RAND Corp. that looked at the feasibility of a single payer system has given renewed hope to advocates, while concerns are being raised about how such a system would play out financially.

Sen. Michael Dembrow D-Portland, whose legislation gave the impetus for the RAND study, is fully aware that more work lies ahead.
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Short-term health plans have been around for decades, bridging coverage gaps for people who are between jobs or have recently graduated from school, among other things. After the health law passed, some people gravitated toward them because they were willing to trade comprehensive coverage for a cheaper sticker price even if it meant paying a tax penalty for not having the comprehensive coverage required in the law.
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Please contact the State Library of access to this premium story from the Lund Report. library.help@state.or.us , 503-378-8800

Q Corps Cost of Care methodology has progressed from a pilot to national study, revealing Oregons resource use for healthcare services is low but has some of the highest prices 17 percentage above average – compared to four other states. Q Corp is now working on Cost of Care for the Medicare Fee For Service populations, with the Medicaid segment soon to follow.
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The American Cancer Society, OHSU and others concerned about stamping out early addiction to carcinogenic tobacco took the first day of the legislative session to renew their push to increase the legal age of tobacco to the same age as alcohol and marijuana.
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Few people in the progressive Oregon that voted for Hillary Clinton misread the conservative campaign priorities of candidate Donald Trump: He’d shouted them out. But few Oregonians, like many across the country, could foresee the daily carnival attending the implementation of executive orders and directives from President Donald Trump.

A solution may be at hand to resolve the ongoing dispute between the Oregon Department of Transportation, Oregon legislators and members of the public. It is a dispute that culminated in the need for an ODOT audit last year.

Concerns driving the need for the audit had focused on the agency’s fiscal practices, project management performance and disconnects with the overseeing Oregon Transportation Commission.

-$43 million project could lure tens of thousands of visitors each year-

The Old McKenzie Fish Hatchery looks very much like it did in 1907 when it was built, says Ken Engelman, president of a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving the hatchery.

The Friends of Old McKenzie Fish Hatchery have worked to maintain the hatchery buildings. Now, they want to undertake the vastly more daunting task of raising $43 million to build an interpretive center and museum on the site that would celebrate the McKenzie River and draw tens of thousands of visitors a year.

Speed limits that were increased to 65 mph between Redmond and Madras and east of Bend before being dropped back to 55 mph will go up again next year if Oregon lawmakers don’t take action on the issue.

The speed limits across much of Eastern and Central Oregon, approved by the Legislature in 2015, rose in March last year to 65 mph along most of U.S. Highway 97 and on U.S. Highway 20 east of Bend, as well as several less traveled highways to the east.

A change in how the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers interprets its acquisition regulations means it could privatize the operation of Cole Rivers Hatchery on the Rogue River and six other hatcheries it owns in Oregon.

The agency is floating the concept of contracting the Cole Rivers operation – and its nearly 2.8 million fish grown there for release in the Rogue River Basin – to the lowest bidder on a one-year contract as early as spring.

All the preliminaries are over. The first batch of bills has been filed. A pair of early budgets already have been written. Legislators have gone through their training about treating each other with respect. This is true. …

Those who proclaim government agencies should be run like businesses are, in some ways, wrong.

A case in point: If government services and infrastructure were awarded to low-population areas in proportion to the income they produce, large swaths of America wouldn’t have paved roads, bridges or anything but one-room schools.

Each time Coya Crespin crosses the St. Johns Bridge, she knows she’s home. She lives with her six-year-old daughter and five-month-old son in a St. Johns apartment that she’s called home for five years.

That could soon change. A California-based property management company bought her apartment complex in October. They’ve started handing out no-cause eviction notices to the more than 50 families living there.

The Multnomah County sheriff’s deputy who, on Election Day, drove past a line of people waiting to vote in Southeast Portland and chanted “Trump, Trump” over the loudspeaker of a county vehicle violated election law, according to an investigation by the Oregon Secretary of State, Election Division.

So says Brown’s former communications director in a quote that pretty much sums up the tenor of a new New Yorker profile of Oregon’s governor. Katniss Everdeen, in case you didn’t know, is the butt-kicking protagonist from “The Hunger Games,” played by Jennifer Lawrence in the movies.

Construction on a new sound wall on Interstate-5 in South Salem will begin in the next couple weeks, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.

The sound wall, part of the second phase of the Kuebler Interchange Project which expanded southbound on and off ramps to I-5 southbound last year, will run between Kuebler Blvd. and Battle Creek Road.

Oregon is what the Trump administration would call a sanctuary jurisdiction.

Oregon’s been that way for 30 years, yet President Trump is now threatening to deny the state, its cities and towns, federal grants if they don’t let his Attorney General turn local law enforcement into federal immigration agents.

Free cake is always a hit, so Oregon will once again be offering slices of the buttercream confection, while supplies last, at its 158th birthday celebration next month.

Oregon, which became the 33rd state on Feb. 14, 1859 and is the 9th largest in the union, will host a variety of activities to commemorate the day. The public is invited to the free celebration, which will run from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 11.

A new report showing that Oregon needs to spend an additional $1.3 billion a year on roads, bridges and other parts of the transportation system, plus $3.7 billion to erase a backlog of projects, has a lot in common with the biennial reports showing that the state ought to be spending $1 billion more each year on public schools. The reports are sobering, indisputable and destined to be ignored. If Oregon comes up with a quarter of the transportation money the report calls for, legislators will be able to count it as a success.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown is in the process of creating a Trump resistance team.

Browns campaign emailed her supporters earlier this week, telling them that Donald Trumps first actions as president have attacked our values as Americans and as Oregonians and asking them to join a Social Action Team to bring communities together to resist in a divided nation, The Portland Oregonian reported earlier this week.

-Those who study the male brain say that creating a more welcoming environment for how males learn best could transform the state’s ability to improve its graduation rates – and decrease prison populations at the same time.-

Portland Public Schools boys are still significantly less likely to graduate high school in four years than their female counterparts.

That’s according to 2015-16 data released last week from the Oregon Department of Education on students who entered high school four years earlier.

Gov. Kate Brown signed an executive order Thursday barring the use of any state resources to enforce federal immigration policy and called on the state Attorney General’s Office to sue the Trump administration over the president’s executive order on immigration.

The Oregon Department of Transportation and the states cities and counties estimate they need an extra $1.3 billion a year to preserve roads and bridges, ease congestion and bolster public transportation, according to an analysis state lawmakers released Wednesday.

Additionally, Oregon’s cities estimate they would need $3.7 billion to deal with their backlog in road and other transportation work.

As Oregon lawmakers get back to doing the states business, they have a problem: The states general fund, which pays for everything from state police to social workers, is expected to get about $1.8 billion less in money over the 2017-18 biennium that it would take to balance the states budget without cutting services or programs.

We talk to Kendall Derby, the owner of one of Oregon’s only juniper sawmills, to find out how the industry has been growing and get his take on the impact of recent state grants to juniper loggers and sawmill owners like him.

The state of Oregon needs to prepare for the human health risks that come along with climate change. That’s the message Oregon Health Authority delivered in a plan released Thursday. In recent years, Oregon has seen the warmest year on record and the lowest snowpack. Its had one of the most severe fire seasons and declared widespread drought emergencies.

-The Columbia Ridge Landfill and Recycling Centers waste disposal contract with Metro is set to expire in 2019.-

For nearly 30 years, trash day in Portland has meant payday in rural Gilliam County.

A fleet of 50 garbage trucks arrives every day from the big city to a remote, windswept plateau south of Arlington, home of Waste Managements Columbia Ridge Landfill and Recycling Center. The 12,00-acre dump employs 90 people roughly 5 percent of the countys population and kicks in millions of dollars annually to local coffers.

Q:Last week, my windshield got hit on two separate days by small rocks flying up from I-5 in the area around Gold Hill and the town of Rogue River. There are now two chips in my windshield. Did ODOT lay down sand and gravel in that area during our recent icy, snowy weather? If so, does ODOT plan to sweep up the material?

A: Oregon Department of Transportation Spokesman Gary Leaming said the agency did in fact spread material on Interstate 5 to help combat the dangerous road conditions in that area.

A battle over health care is brewing after Oregon’s expansion of health insurance coverage blew a $1 billion hole in the state’s budget.

Democratic Gov. Kate Brown is proposing more spending on health care, while Democratic lawmakers are saying cuts to the Oregon Health Plan and other programs are inevitable without additional taxes and other revenue increases.

One of the more perplexing problems that Klamath Falls faces is how can the city welcome more college students downtown and can it lead to convincing students to stick around after graduation and create jobs here?

Its safe to say that nearly every small college town has this issue, as the degrees students are obtaining dont match with the availability of careers in the same burg.

The state Department of Education released its newest data on four-year graduation rates last week, and the news came with mixed blessings.

Statewide, the Class of 2016 had a graduation rate of 74.8 percent, up a full percentage point from 2015, and three points more than 2014. State officials, including Gov. Kate Brown, lauded the continued improvement.

Citing a spike in interest for national political issues, State Sen. Sara Gelser wants her constituents to make it out to U.S. Senator Ron Wyden’s 11 a.m. town hall meeting at Linn-Benton Community College on Saturday. Further, she encourages both red and blue voters to attend.

Douglas County government and local schools will be hit hard this year by a loss of funding from U.S. Forest Service timber receipts.

Counties across the country will be affected by a 90 percent reduction in timber payments in the wake of the loss of Secure Rural Schools funds. Logging has all but halted on federal forests since the 1990s. The Secure Rural Schools program was passed in 2000 to help alleviate the pain for the 700 counties and 4,000 school districts impacted by the loss in funds. But Douglas and other counties received their last SRS payments in 2015, and theres no indication that Congress will authorize the payments again.

The Oregon Department of Education has released a list of graduation rates for all Oregon public schools. The list indicates the state graduation rate increased by nearly 1.4 percent to 74.83 percent for the 2015-16 school year.

Douglas County saw a higher graduation rate increase than the state, with a 3.5 percent increase up to 65.96 percent. But despite the increase, Douglas County still ranks among the bottom five counties, having the 32nd worst grad rate out of Oregons 36 counties.

The Oregon State Legislature convened Wednesday, and Douglas County’s legislators are already setting their priorities for the coming session.

Sen. Jeff Kruse, R-Roseburg, told The News-Review he anticipates a long year ahead. He expects a special session in September to finish the budget, given the level of uncertainty around funding, both because of the Affordable Care Act’s repeal and an unknown number of upcoming executive orders from the president.

Governor Kate Brown signed an executive order Thursday she says will protect civil and human rights of all Oregonians.

In the order, Gov. Brown put policies in place that instruct state employees to perform their duties while being mindful of Oregon’s welcoming and inclusive position toward all, including immigrants and refugees.

The Oregon Legislature began its 2017 session Wednesday, facing a $1.7 billion deficit that threatens to increase tensions between Republicans and Democratic lawmakers who have the majority in both chambers.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown D prohibited state agencies from cooperating with federal immigration officials Thursday, becoming the latest blue state official to act against President Trumps early moves against undocumented immigrants.

The Senate Democrats unveiled their 2017 agenda, and healthcare budgetary issues dominated the conversation. The state must find revenue sources to pay for its share of the Oregon Health Plan, which could be further imperiled by attempts to scrap or decimate Medicaid funding in Congress.

How to resist Trump? Early the other morning, I put the question to Oregon’s Kate Brown, who in November became the first L.G.B.T. person to be elected governor of an American state, after being appointed to the position in 2015.

The state of Oregon faces a $1.8 billion dollar budget deficit. InterMountain Education Service District Superintendent Mark Mulvihill says that probably means public education will spend another biennium just scraping by and trying to make ends meet.

Lawmakers settled at least one question about Oregon’s troubled public pension system on the opening day of the 2017 legislative session: They will be delving into its problems and looking at their money-saving options.

Portland and Oregon have a lot to be proud of: Oregon is at the top of the list for in-migration, Fast Company recently ranked Portland a top city for job-seekers, and innovative environmental policies have garnered international attention. Still, many Oregonians are left behind.

For Portlanders familiar with the trauma and “extreme vetting” that refugees have already endured, Donald Trump’s executive order suspending refugee resettlement is dark, petty and unnecessary.

“I’ve never seen an administration or a president act like this,” says Mike McDonald, a founding board member of the Refugee Care Collective and a guy who works in five of the seven Muslim-majority countries on the White House banned list.

Oregon would become the third state to raise the age of sale for tobacco products from 18 to 21 if lawmakers pass legislation backed by the American Cancer Society.

Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, announced Wednesday morning that she will soon introduce a bill that would prohibit retailers from selling any tobacco product including e-cigarettes to anyone younger than 21.

A look at what some states have done or are considering after President Donald Trump signed an executive order threatening to withhold federal funding from communities that don’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities:

-Lawmakers suggest paying for the large increase with toll roads and bicycle taxes, among other options-

The Oregon Department of Transportation and the states cities and counties estimate they need an extra $1.3 billion a year to preserve roads and bridges, ease congestion and bolster public transportation, according to an analysis state lawmakers released Wednesday.

-Some are moving to follow his order and others are breaking with the U.S. government to protect immigrants in the country illegally-

California, the nation’s largest state, is pushing for a statewide sanctuary that would prohibit law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities, while a fellow U.S.-Mexico border state, Texas, is seeking to withhold funding from cities with the policies.

Canada and Mexico are both important trading partners for Oregon. Canada was Oregon’s number two destination for exports in 2015, while Mexico was number 11, according to Business Oregon, the state’s economic development agency. A trade war with either country has big implications for many Oregon companies.

-2017 Oregon Legislature began without negotiations over the major issues confronting it-

The 2017 Oregon Legislature was in trouble before it even started. The session convened Wednesday without bipartisan agreement on how to handle any of the major problems facing the state, from the $1.8 billion shortfall to the need for a new transportation funding package.

-Our analsyis of court records shows that Oregon has a problem. But it doesn’t explain why.-

In July 1945 members of the City Club of Portland issued a 17-page report on “The Negro in Portland.”

The club looked at various issues, including their own research showing that black residents, who made up less than 2 percent of Multnomah County’s population at the time, represented 13.2 percent of those sent to the state penitentiary.

A long-awaited performance audit of the Oregon Department of Transportation paints a decidedly mixed picture: On one hand, ODOT is a standout compared with other states in the West. At the same time, its above average compared with all states departments of transportation, but below average when compared with similar private companies.

Increasing concern over high drug prices has triggered an uncommon collaboration of unions, advocacy organizations and health insurance carriers. The new coalition calling itself Oregonians for Affordable Drug Prices Now plans to push the issue heavily during this years legislative session, which began Wednesday.

An investigation into a suspected cancer cluster among soccer players in Washington state found fewer than expected cases in the 5 to 24 age group, casting doubt on a theory that playing on artificial turf fields could increase the risk for cancer.

A long-awaited performance audit of the Oregon Department of Transportation paints a decidedly mixed picture: On one hand, ODOT is a standout compared with other states in the West. At the same time, its above average compared with all states departments of transportation, but below average when compared with similar private companies.

When Oregon’s pioneering bottle deposit bill was passed in 1971, its advocates wanted to control litter and have industry pick up the cost. They probably didn’t envision industry getting a windfall from consumers who don’t redeem their bottles.

As the state prepares to double the deposit from a nickel to a dime in April, Willamette Week newspapers Nigel Jaquiss discovered that beverage distributors have been keeping about $30 million annually in uncollected deposits. When the rate doubles in April, that could mean theyre keeping $60 million.

Chris Lehman and Gordon Friedman with The Oregonian/Oregonlive join us to preview the work lawmakers will be undertaking in the 2017 legislative session, which begins today.

John Zielinski with the Oregon Farm Bureau joins us to talk about what farmers are hoping for from the Federal government in terms of immigration. Also, we check in with local lawyer Bradley Maier, who says its likely worker visa programs may be changed in a forthcoming executive order.

Since the 1990s, sea lion predation on protected fish species has been a problem at dams throughout the Pacific Northwest. A new study suggests we could start to solve that problem by thinking about sea lion behavior through the lens of epidemiology. We talk to Zach Shackner with the National Marine Fish Services Office.

Oregon school districts are crafting guidelines for teachers and office staff in the event officials with Immigration and Customs Enforcement show up at Oregon public schools, looking for students, families or information.

Several districts, including Portland Public Schools, David Douglas and North Clackamas confirmed to OPB theyre drafting advice on how to respond to immigration officers, should they come knocking.

In a new report, the Oregon Global Warming Commission says the state isn’t expected to come within striking distance of its 2020 or 2050 goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The commission says the latest numbers show a perilous reversal in the downward trend of emissions from cars and trucks over the past few years. In short, people are driving more and in bigger vehicles.

A recently released childrens health report reveals interesting factoids about the nearly 20,000 children who live in Umatilla, Morrow and Union counties.

They sleep an average of 10.1 hours a night. Each day, they spend on average 1.84 hours watching television, 1.33 hours reading, 0.84 hours on the computer and 0.84 hours playing video games. They miss an average of 3.9 days of school a year because of illness or injury. A third of children are overweight, with a fifth classified as obese.

Low-income inmates leaving the Jackson County Jail will have better access to Oregon Health Plan insurance coverage because of a new agreement between the state and county.

Jackson County commissioners on Wednesday approved an agreement for trained county workers to help inmates enroll or re-enroll in OHP. The Oregon Health Authority provides the training for the county workers.

A state commission is pointing to a potential transportation funding package in the Legislature as a key tool for getting Oregon on track to meeting its carbon emissions goals.

In a draft report to the Legislature set to be issued today the day the 2017 legislative session opens in Salem the Oregon Global Warming Commission writes that a key takeaway is that rising transportation emissions are driving increases in statewide emissions.

-Senate Bill 571 comes as more states are looking at legislation to limit the ability of law enforcement to track phones-

A bill filed by Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, would require authorities in Oregon to get a warrant before tracking a suspects cell phone or getting information from it via a cell-site simulator device like a Stingray.

The Oregon Land Conservation and Development Commission said Wednesday it has approved administrative rules to launch an affordable housing pilot program .

The rules adopted at the LCDC’s meeting in St. Helens last Thursday implement House Bill 4079, which allows two cities to develop affordable housing on up to 50 acres outside their urban growth boundaries without going through the normal urban growth boundary expansion process.

-It’s repetitive for some to hear, but important for everybody to know: You can’t explain Millennial economic behavior without explaining that real wages for young Americans have collapsed.-

American families are grappling with stagnant wage growth, as the costs of health care, education, and housing continue to climb. But for many of America’s younger workers, “stagnant” wages shouldn’t sound so bad. In fact, they might sound like a massive raise.

Since the Great Recession struck in 2007, the median wage for people between the ages of 25 and 34, adjusted for inflation, has fallen in every major industry except for health care.

In 1994, Oregonians voted to ban the use of dogs to hunt cougars and bears. In legislative sessions following the passage of that ballot measure, however, lawmakers have introduced bills aiming to dismantle and weaken Measure 18.

Since 2008, Senior Oregon Director and Rural Outreach Director of the Humane Society of the United States Scott Beckstead says hes been fighting these efforts during every legislative session.

The American Cancer Society, OHSU and others concerned about stamping out early addiction to carcinogenic tobacco took the first day of the legislative session to renew their push to increase the legal age of tobacco to the same age as alcohol and marijuana.

The 2017 Legislative Session officially kicks off today. The even year long session is slated to run through early July. But with a $1.7 billion budget shortfall to deal with, there has already been talk of a Special Session after that.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Tuesday announced the latest addition to her office: Jason Lewis-Berry, a former official at the U.S. Department of State, will advise the governor on economic and jobs policy.

Madison Gaylin wakes up each weekday and makes the 45-minute drive from her parents’ home in Clatskanie to Clatsop Community College in Astoria.

Gaylin isn’t paying a dime for her tuition, fees, or books. That’s because the 18-year-old is one of 47 students attending the coastal school under Oregon Promise, a state program that acts as a last-dollar scholarship for qualified students to attend community colleges.

State and federal wildlife managers are investigating a possible outbreak of avian cholera in the Stanfield and Milton-Freewater area after several hundred ducks were spotted dead on private wetlands there.

By now it is widely known Portland’s hot real estate and rental market can put the squeeze on household budgets. Few people, however, feel it more than apartment tenants whose incomes, in many cases fixed, fail to keep pace with rent increases.

The Oregon Legislature will get right to work on what could be one of the most contentious issues of the 2017 session trying to reduce costs associated with PERS, the Public Employees Retirement System.

A lawmaker from Utah has introduced legislation that would dispose of 3.3 million acres of public land nationwide, including 70,300 acres in Oregon.

In what some have called the opening shot by Republicans to sell or transfer federal lands, U.S. Rep. Jason Chaffetz introduced H.R. 621 last week to free up resources for economic development in struggling rural communities.

-Opponents in record corporate sales tax measure have not met face-to-face to negotiate a compromise on reform-

The heads of the Oregon House and Senate announced last week they have been unable to bring together the opposing sides on how to fix the state’s unstable revenue system and a $1.8 billion shortfall in the next two years.

Driving a hard bargain as the Legislature commences this week, Republican legislators say they’d be willing to consider revenue reform but only if there are changes to the other side of the state’s ledger.

-Oregon is the only state not to reassess taxable value on a property when it is sold or transferred.-

More than two decades have passed since voter approval of Oregon’s property tax reform Measure 5 and the Measure 47/50 couplet. While Measure 5 capped the overall property tax rate, Measures 47/50 limited the annual rate of reassessment. Thanks to these initiatives, property tax bills became more predictable and fewer homeowners were taxed out of their own homes.

We had not seen a deer in our yard for three weeks, and I guessed they had gone into the Paulina unit east of U.S. Highway 97, but then they showed up. It was the same crippled doe we had seen for three straight years, her fawn of the year and another female.

A complex of dams along the Deschutes River saw a massive return of native sockeye salmon in 2016.

A total of 536 sockeye salmon returned to the Pelton Round Butte Hydroelectric Project, a complex of three hydroelectric dams and reservoirs that stretch about 20 miles along the Deschutes River just west of Madras.

Prineville will use a $2 million state grant to help pay for improvements that will bring jobs to the Prineville Airport, relieve aviation congestion and make it easier for the U.S. Forest Service to fight fires from the Central Oregon facility.

County attorney Doug Olsen said most of the grants would pay for methods to keep livestock safe from wolves but some would cover the cost of livestock that wolves killed. He explained the money comes from the Oregon Department of Agricultures wolf depredation fund.

OnTrack’s new interim executive director wants to focus on stabilizing families that have been torn apart by drug addiction as well as reorienting an organization that is working its way through its own crisis.

Kerri Hecox, 44, is taking over for former director Rita Sullivan as OnTrack confronts greater scrutiny from state agencies over “deplorable conditions” at the group’s recovery housing.

Three men have been sentenced in federal court for illegally collecting and trading wild snakes caught in 11 states and Canada – including Southern Oregon – following a three-year investigation called Operation Kingsnake.

The men captured hundreds of wild snakes, including seven California mountain kingsnakes in the south Cascades during 2011, and transported them across state lines illegally, violating the federal Lacey Act.

Oregon’s Legislative Session starts on tomorrow, and the biggest topic will certainly be the budget. Gov. Kate Brown released a recommended budget last month that has everyone in media gasping for breath because of a $1.7 billion shortfall.

The governor is quoted as saying, “The budget includes significant cuts at a level I find absolutely unacceptable”

The Coos Bay School District made the target list for poor English Language Learning graduation rates, meaning the district will now receive $90,000 from the Oregon Department of Education to improve the program, something that special programs director Lisa DeSalvio said is both good and bad.

Over the past five school years, Warrenton High School has steadily climbed from the worst to nearly the best in Clatsop County at graduating students in four years.

Since 57.9 percent of the class of 2012 graduated in four years, the worst mark in the county, the school has seen continual gains, with more than 63 percent in 2013, 66 percent in 2014 and more than 69 percent in 2015. Last year, more than 74 percent of Warrenton students graduated on time, nearly the highest rate among the countys three larger school districts.

-The closest medical detox center on the list is in St. Helens, 66 miles away in Columbia County.-

Doctors and nurses at Columbia Memorial Hospital can treat acute conditions and symptoms of chronic drug or alcohol abuse, but patients who need to go through the painful withdrawal of detoxification get a card with a list of local rehabilitation facilities.

The basement rooms of a medical detox center may seem like a universe away from the world of Harry Potter and Harvard. The message on the bulletin board Monday afternoon, drawn in red marker, brought them closer together: Rock bottom became the solid foundation in which I rebuilt my life.

An application for a new retail outlet at 828 Pacific Blvd. S.E. is one of three proposed for Linn, Benton and Lane counties that have been granted preliminary approval by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, the state agency announced. The other two are in Eugene.

All the preliminaries are over. The first batch of bills has been filed. A pair of early budgets already have been written. Legislators have gone through their training about treating each other with respect. This is true.

So there’s nothing left except for the 2017 legislative session to officially begin.

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission is to be commended for recognizing that a 2013 policy dictated by former Gov. John Kitzhaber to kick commercial salmon fishing off the Columbia River has failed.

Roseburg-based business Lone Rock Timber Management Company has operated in Oregon forests for four generations. Now, the family-owned company and partner Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians hope to acquire the Elliott State Forest to keep the land in local ownership and manage the forest for timber harvest while meeting conservation and public access requirements.

Joseph Mayor Dennis Sands is about to take the condition of Josephs roads to the state house.

Sands is one of the regional representatives for small cities with populations of 5,000 or less in Morrow, Umatilla, Union and Wallowa counties.

In an October meeting sponsored by the League of Oregon Cities in Elgin, Sands met with two representatives from Oregon Department of Transportation. It was an opportunity for the small cities to talk about their transportation and infrastructure issues.

-What we know about changes at the EPA, and how they could impact Oregon’s environmental quality.-

As the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality works to rebound from a tumultuous 2016, the agency now faces an uncertain future in light of the Trump administrations planned cutbacks at the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

-A poll from the American Cancer Society found 64% of Oregonians support the idea-

Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, will introduce new legislation on Wednesday to raise the age of sale for all tobacco products to 21 across Oregon, according to the American Cancer Society.

A federal lawsuit filed this week against drug companies that make insulin names Oregon and Washington as potential beneficiaries. It accuses those companies of intentionally price gouging the life-saving diabetes drug to make a bigger profit.

Oregon State Police say there’s a new school safety tip line students can use to report a potential threat. Its called Safe Oregon and was created under a bill passed by state lawmakers. Schools need to complete a sign up process in order for their students to use the tip line.

Each September, Umatilla County, Ore., hosts the Pendleton Round-Up, a massive rodeo that draws 50,000 people, nearly doubling the county’s population. Cowboys and cowgirls from across the country bring their broncos to compete, while guests line up to watch them battle bulls and rope steers, among other things, over the three-day affair.

-Farmers worry the rogue weed will harm their livelihoods and hurt the environment-

This is the story of an Oregon weed that nobody’s high on.

In two areas of the state, and in nearby Idaho, a genetically modified, weedy grass has spread beyond fields where it was grown by contractors affiliated with the Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., which developed it beginning in the 1990s in collaboration with Monsanto. Over more than a decade, Scotts has spent millions trying and failing to eradicate the plant, known as creeping bentgrass, which is genetically modified to be resistant to the herbicide Roundup, also known as glyphosate.

-Land totaling the size of Connecticut has been targeted in a new bill in the Republican House, uniting hunters and conservationists in opposition-

Now that Republicans have quietly drawn a path to give away much of Americans public land, US representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah has introduced what the Wilderness Society is calling step two in the GOPs plan to offload federal property.

In 2015, Oregon had a per capita personal income PCPI of $43,783. The PCPI ranked 29th in the United States and was 91 percent of the national average, $48,112, according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In Oregon, the 2015 PCPI increased by 5.0 percent from 2014, faster than the nationwide PCPI growth rate of 3.7 percent. In 2005, Oregon’s PCPI was $32,421 and ranked 32nd in the United States.

An independent review of the Oregon Department of Transportation shows that while the agency’s overall performance is at par with other states, there’s room to improve and prevent taxpayer money from being left on the table.

A construction worker who spent a month in a Portland burn unit after being injured in a butane-fueled explosion in Astoria last fall has filed a lawsuit against the company that made the cannabis extract, the property owner and the company that sold the flammable gas used to make the product.

Portland Commissioner Chloe Eudaly’s proposed tenant protection rule up for vote Thursday could entangle Portland in a lawsuit that could block or delay some or all its provisions, attorney John DiLorenzo says.

In August 2014, just before the school year launched, Oregon City High School principal Tom Lovell asked the faculty gathered before him to guess how many F’s they’d collectively given the previous year.

The presidents of Oregon’s three largest public universities criticized President Donald Trump’s temporary ban on travelers from seven majority Muslim nations as a blow to global scholarship, research and diversity at their respective campuses.

The Oregon Legislature could issue up to $1.14 billion in new general-fund backed debt and up to $209 million in Lottery-backed debt over each of the next four 2-year budget cycles, State Treasurer Tobias Read announced Monday. That’s $5.4 billion over the next eight years.

As word of Rep. Vic Gilliam’s resignation spread through the state capital Monday, there was a common lament: who’s going to watch out for seniors and veterans now?

Resignations are never easy. But this one was difficult to hear. With just two days until the start of the 79th session of the Oregon Legislature, Gilliam announced on Facebook that he was stepping down for reasons including “fairness to his constituents.”

Dennis Richardson was elected secretary of state partly on the strength of his promise to ensure that the office operates in a nonpartisan manner. Oregonians should expect no less from their chief elections officer. But Richardson is taking his pledge too far by asking the Legislature to consider a bill that would limit his authority to investigate violations of election rules or laws. He shouldn’t disarm until hes sure he wont need a weapon.

The U.S. refugee program that President Trump temporarily suspended has brought thousands of refugees into Oregon in recent years, says the Portland-based nonprofit Immigrant Refugee & Community Organization.

In federal fiscal year 2016, the refugee program brought into Oregon 96 people from Syria, 156 from Somalia, 212 from Iraq and 41 from Iran, as well as hundreds from Africa and former territories of the Soviet Union, for a total of 1,780, according to the Portland group. That year ran from Oct. 1, 2015, to Sept. 30, 2016.

Lane County Public Defender Brook Reinhards Jan. 25 guest viewpoint reminds us what a treasure we lost with the retirement of his predecessor, Greg Hazerabedian. Greg recognized and valued the roles each of his partners in the criminal justice system played, including prosecutors.

-The audit by New York-based McKinsey and Co. found ODOT’s organizational health is still better than average in western states.-

A long-awaited performance audit of the Oregon Department of Transportation found the agency has a familial culture that is lacking in dissent and accountability and needs a clearer and more coordinated strategic vision for its future.

Gov. Kate Brown promised Oregonians all sorts of things when she was sworn in following her first elected term in office in early January. That’s pretty common: No governor wants to stand up and announce that the status quo is fine.

Yet the speed with which Brown backed away from her promises to rural Oregonians is downright dizzying. A single action, which can, to some extent, be traced back to the governor herself, proves the depth of her commitment to rural Oregonians.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made 58 arrests in Portland in January, including five foreign nationals, at or near courthouses in Multnomah County, according to an official with the federal government.

Oregon state Rep. Vic Gilliam, a Republican from Silverton who is battling ALS, announced Monday that he’s stepping down. His resignation is effective Wednesday, the first day of the 2017 legislative session.

Political leaders in Oregon are reacting defiantly to President Donald Trumps executive order strictly limiting who can enter the United States. Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum condemned President Trumps executive order that freezes immigration from seven mostly Muslim countries.

At a meeting Thursday, the Pendleton Planning Commission will take another look at a plan that could significantly change how Pendleton drivers navigate the area surrounding the Southgate exit on Interstate 84.

In 2010, the commission approved an interchange area management plan that is meant to ease congestion along the off-ramp and on-ramp at exit 209.

OnTrack announced Monday it has hired Dr. Kerri Hecox as its interim executive director to help the organization regroup after state investigators uncovered serious problems at housing provided to recovering drug addicts and their families.

The OnTrack board also announced it hired Hammonds Construction Friday to remodel crisis housing apartments at 11th and 12th streets in Medford after “deplorable” conditions were found by Department of Human Services and Oregon Health Authority investigators in January.

The federal courtroom chambers were full on Monday for opening arguments kicking off the takings case hearing in Washington, D.C.

More than 25 Basin irrigators or those who represent them are scheduled to testify in the consolidated case at the U.S. Federal Court of Claims over the course of the next three weeks. Testimony may also be heard from Bureau of Reclamation officials from Klamath Falls and Sacramento.

Klamath County Public Health is proposing a tobacco retail licensing ordinance to county commissioners, which, if implemented, would require all businesses that sell tobacco products to obtain a license in exchange for selling those products to consumers.

It took a political battle in rural Oregon to generate significant state-wide effort to eliminate the flaw in the states election system that lets incumbent politicians play games with filing deadlines and choose their successors.

It wasn’t the first time Oregon incumbents filed for re-election then unexpectedly to most voters, anyway withdrew and let last-minute candidates become the only ones in the running for party nominations.

The Oregon Department of Transportation last week appealed a proposed Loves Travel Stop and Country Store that is planned in the city of Millersburg, asking that a planning commission approval of a site plan review be overturned.

The state agency, in a letter to the city, said there is insufficient evidence to determine whether the business will have a significant impact to Interstate 5 and Linn County road systems.

One of the biggest question marks surrounding the 2017 legislative session is this one: Will proposals to try to rein in the costs of the state’s Public Employees Retirement System finally get a full and fair hearing this year?

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EDITORIAL: SPEED BUMPS ON THE ROAD TO LEGALIZATION — OPINION (Albany Democrat Herald) Recent events in Brownsville and Salem suggest that, while the state of Oregon has made considerable progress in legalizing the recreational use of marijuana, wrinkles remain.

Some of these wrinkles won’t be ironed out until the federal government takes a couple of sensible steps on the issue, in part to accommodate the increasing number of states that have voted to legalize.

With President Donald Trump’s signing last week of an executive order to strip federal money away from sanctuary cities, the question of what might be at stake for Corvallis and the other entities that have declared themselves sanctuaries for illegal immigrants became a touch less academic.

People have been moving to Oregon in droves ever since Lewis and Clark. This fact is a foundational statement in our offices presentations and one of the key reasons Oregons economy outperforms the typical state over the business cycle. As our office has pointed out in the past, Oregon is essentially a 50-50 state when it comes to Oregon-born residents vs those born elsewhere in the country. Focusing only on adults children dont get to decide where they want to live shows that just 38% of adult Oregon residents were born in the state.

Jenny Green, a gallerist and art historian from Bend, has been appointed to the Oregon Arts Commission by Gov. Kate Brown. Green fills the position previously held by Lawrence Fong of Portland, who completed his term in October.

If the Affordable Care Act is repealed, coverage of birth control with no co-payment is one of many benefits that Americans could lose. Now legislators in Oregon have introduced a bill intended to protect access to birth control in the state, along with a broad range of other reproductive health care services, including abortion.

The battle to legally grow, sell, buy and smoke pot in California has been a long one.

Voters in the state ushered in medical marijuana 20 years ago, but took until last fall to approve a plan to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana.

Now, California officials are faced with setting rules for a product that has been outlawed by the federal government since the 1930s a challenge that lawmakers and regulators in the other states that chose some form of marijuana legalization in the November election also are confronting.

In Wyoming, Republican Gov. Matt Mead is counting on a state-funded research center set to open this year to find a way to produce energy from coal without releasing carbon dioxide into the environment. In Kansas, Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is eyeing new wind farms to bring jobs and economic growth. And in Ohio, Republican Gov. John Kasich says the state needs to support renewable energy to stay competitive and reduce electricity costs.

If lawmaking doesn’t work out for the Legislature’s chief budget writers, they have a solid future in horror flicks. The budget framework released earlier this month by Sen. Richard Devlin, D-Tualatin, and Rep. Nancy Nathanson, D-Eugene, is nothing short of terrifying for the dystopian picture it paints if the state fails to raise additional revenue.

The legislative session opening this week carries with it higher stakes than ever. A failure by lawmakers to recognize harsh financial realities and then to act decisively to set Oregon on a safe course ahead will bring pain to many and, down the line, damage to public education and basic services. Oregon must get this right, and it will require steadfast leadership to do so.

Oregon, a sanctuary state where Hillary Clinton won and where President Donald Trump spent little time during his campaign, has been left off an early list of 50 infrastructure priorities to receive federal dollars.

The snub comes on the eve of a particularly challenging legislative session, in which Republicans and Democrats must agree how to address a $1.8 billion deficit and how to put together a transportation funding package.

Politicians generally don’t try to curb their own power, but that’s exactly what Oregon’s second-highest official is mulling over.

In one of his first moves to create new policy, Secretary of State Dennis Richardson has tasked lawyers within the Legislature to draft a bill that would roll back his authority to order elections investigations, said Richardson’s spokesman, Michael Calcagno.

Nose to the ground, Dante races through the hazelnut orchard. The fluffy Lagotta Romagnolo is trained to search for truffles – a pungent mushroom that expert dogs can sniff out 100 yards away.

After a few minutes, Dante beelines toward a tree and scratches at its base. Pat Long rushes over, flicks out his pocketknife and starts digging. He unearths a gumball-sized Perigord truffle, named for the region where they were first commercially cultivated in France.

For centuries, America has been a destination for those wanting to apply their hard work to the purpose of creating a better life for themselves and their families. We are a nation built on immigration.

A bill introduced in the Oregon senate would mean no more tests for cannabis use as a condition for employment and no more fear that casual use of the now-legal-in-Oregon substance could cost you your job.

Sen. Peter Courtney has delivered many retirement letters thanking officials and officers for their work. Friday was the first time the recipient had four legs, a wagging tail and a penchant for light-up chew toys.

The letter of gratitude was addressed to “Donja the Dog,” who is retiring after seven years on patrol with the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

In light of the Trump administration’s decision to halt federal spending on advertising and outreach for health care, Oregon officials are spending an additional $100,000 in advertising to encourage residents to sign up for health care coverage the final days of open enrollment.

In early January, SEIU 503 and Family Forward Oregon launched a new project called Oregon CareWorks, aimed at raising the value of care in Oregon.

Care is universal and fundamental to our lives. So much so that we often take it for granted and rarely step back to examine the systems we have in place. However, recent demographic and economic shifts have forced us to take a hard look at our care systems, and what we found is appalling.

Last November, the top administrators of Lane County’s three largest school districts made public statements related to bullying. In part, they stated: Regardless of the uncertainty associated with the election, schools still are safe places.

When I was asked by the Obama administration to lead the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Development program in Oregon, I set out on a journey that would lead me to small communities across the state grappling with infrastructure and economic development needs, into the homes of people struggling to make ends meet, and through the doors of businesses just getting off the ground or searching for resources to expand.

-Although there are people, like Jim Ludwick, spokesman for Oregonians for Immigration Reform, who remain opposed to illegal immigration because its illegal-

Jan Carlos Valle says he was 13 when he and a friend left Valles hometown of Mexico City on a beat-up motorcycle. They crossed into the United States in 1982 at a small town on the California border between Tecate and Mexicali.

Oregon leaders are pushing back against President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration.

The president’s order freezes immigration from seven mostly Muslim nations and bars admittance of all refugees into the United States. The White House said the order also applies to green card-holders and visa-holders from those seven countries who are not currently in the U.S., the Associated Press reported.

-Leading academics release third assessment to the legislature on how changing climate is affecting the state-

The Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, which combines the state’s leading scientists in the field based at Oregon State University, has released its third assessment of how a changing climate is affecting the state.

The 2017 Oregon Legislature won’t start until next week, but lawmakers already are behind schedule.

Don’t think so? Then you haven’t spent an hour, as we did this week, with Senate President Peter Courtney, who already is warning his colleagues that they shouldn’t make any plans for Disneyland until well after the Legislature’s scheduled adjournment in early July. He thinks they could be there much longer.

A Baker City couple who employ 54 people at a call center under a state contract are lobbying Gov. Kate Brown to have the state renew their contract to avoid the loss of those jobs next week, but a state official said there are no plans to continue the deal.

Richard and Kathleen Chaves, who own Chaves Consulting Inc., are nearing the end of the first year under contract with the Oregon Health Authority.

Oregon law promises its citizens that the public’s business will be conducted in public, and the records government collects will be available, barring compelling reasons for secrecy, to anyone who wishes to see them.

Oregon public agencies too often see those two rights from a wildly different perspective: Some of the public’s business will be conducted in public, but public officials and their lawyers will seek to shut the public out whenever discussions are likely to make officials uncomfortable. Public records, too, are often kept secret for as long as possible.

Oregon’s low carbon fuel standard wont make any measurable difference in global warming. What it will do, on the other hand, is cost Oregon drivers money.

The state estimates that the standard could drive up fuel prices by up to 19 cents per gallon. A study commissioned by a group opposed to the standard the Western States Petroleum Association says the cost will be even greater, perhaps as much as a dollar a gallon.

The public safety officers at Central Oregon Community College should stop pretending to be cops. Its altogether unclear they have any such authority.

Deschutes County District Attorney John Hummel says COCCs officers do not possess lawful police powers. From his analysis of Oregon law, the officers can enforce campus traffic regulations, but thats about it. Hummel has told the college that he would initiate criminal charges against it if the officers continue to act without lawful authority.

A dozen years ago, Oregonians staged a property-rights rebellion. It went by the name of Measure 37, and it passed in 35 of the states 36 counties. It even won in famously liberal Multnomah County despite opposition from a who’s who of public employee unions, environmental groups and Democratic politicians.

The measure was a crude weapon aimed at uncompensated property takings, which in plain English means regulations that reduce a property’s value for which the owner isn’t compensated.

The latest high school graduation rates for Oregon were just released, and were still near the bottom of the list when compared to other states. But some schools are doing relatively well. We speak to the principal of Jefferson High School, Margaret Calvert.

We talk with one of the Oregon lawmakers sponsoring a bill that would preserve the Affordable Care Acts requirement for insurers to provide free birth control even if Congress repeals the ACA. It would also go a step further, requiring coverage for abortion procedures.

A temporary freeze on grants and a halt on communications at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency have left Northwest tribes, state agencies and nonprofits uncertain about the future of their environmental programs, which rely on hundreds of millions of federal dollars.

That freeze was in place for several days before the Trump administration lifted it Friday.

Thursday 1/26 marks 317 years since the last recorded Cascadia Quake. As KLCC’s Franziska Monahan reports, the date is being honored with emergency preparedness reminders and new legislation.

On January 26, 1700 an orphan tsunami hit the coast of Japan. The term orphan tsunami refers to the absence of a parent earthquake. Unknown to the Japanese at the time, there had been a quake. On the other side of the world. At the Cascadia subduction zone. The Oregon’s Office of Emergency Managements Althea Rizzo says they’re using the anniversary to promote disaster readiness.

-Heading into its fourth year of operation, the SAGE Center in Boardman continues to search for ways to bring visitors in the doors.-

The story of agriculture and energy production in Eastern Oregon is an increasingly high-tech narrative, replete with GPS-driven tractors, wind and solar power and irrigation pivots powered by the touch of a smartphone.

So when the Port of Morrow set out to highlight these industries, it devised a modern museum with interactive features to show visitors where their food and electricity comes from.

When I was 19 years old, a doctor told me I should only eat wild meat. He said it would be much easier to digest.

What the doctor didn’t tell me was the pursuit of the wild meat would be hard and the challenge would be good for me too.

I have been a conservationist since I was young, learning catch-and-release, learning to preserve places where fish and wildlife thrive. What I didnt know until later was the money I spent on fishing and, later, on hunting, also supported local jobs and conservation.

The safety of staff, inmates and visitors at Snake River Correctional Institution have been in focus ever since winter storms hit, prompting the temporary closure of a couple of the prisons buildings, including a portion of the roof in its minimum facility. On Thursday, the prison also stopped visitation.

After hearing rhetoric from both sides of the issue, the Oregon Department of Education recommended the state school board not close a local charter school or its new high school.

Officials from both the Ontario School District and Four Rivers Community School, an Ontario-based charter school, made their way once again in front of the Oregon State School Board in Salem, Thursday.

Questioned about ongoing rumors of Oregon OSHA inspectors checking on snow removal crews working throughout Malheur County, an agency spokesman said no one has been cited. Oregon OSHA also does not have open inspections involving snow removal, he said.

Safety is the primary concern at Kraft Heinz Ontario after a Jan. 19 incident resulted in the partial collapse of a dry storage facility.

Since the collapse, structural engineers have visited the Kraft Heinz facility to evaluate the safety of other buildings, according to an email to the Argus from Michael Mullen, spokesman for Kraft Heinz.

Oregon’s governor and legislative leaders predicted a tough legislative session this year on Thursday because of a budget deficits, while Democrats are also focused on insulating the state from President Donald Trumps executive orders on immigration, health care and other issues.

“Undocumented and Unafraid” may have read the sign Ricardo Lujan carried in downtown Ashland at the Women’s March, but it doesn’t discount his deep concerns that he could be deported at any time.

Lujan, a senior at Southern Oregon University, said his first thought when he wakes up in the morning is whether today’s the day he’ll lose protections under an Obama administration policy that allows undocumented immigrants who entered the U.S. as children to receive work permits and a reprieve on deportation.

More than 100 people attended the last in a series of three meetings Thursday in Yreka seeking public comment on the planned removal of four dams along the Klamath River, and the overwhelming feeling expressed by Siskiyou County residents was outrage.

Many stated that the majority of the county had spoken in favor of leaving the dams in place and believe that the government entities involved in the decision were not listening to them.

In the 1970’s through the early 1990’s many Jackson County rural landowners requested a rezoning of agriculturally zoned land that had what they called “poor soils.” A number of property owners argued that since pears, our main crop at the time, could not be easily grown on certain lands, those lands were not good for growing anything and therefore should be rezoned for housing or other uses.

The Oregon Department of Education released statewide graduation rates Thursday for the 2015-16 school year, including statistics for the Klamath County School District and the Klamath Falls City Schools.

While the state average for the four-year graduation rate is 74.83 percent, schools within the Klamath County School District averaged 76.38 percent, attaining higher than the state average for the second year in a row.

Tiger, a homeless man who has spent the last four years living in Coos County, says things have changed dramatically since he first arrived.

There’s more of us now. People are coming from out of state, coming from everywhere, he said.

In an attempt to understand how big the homeless problem is in the county, Oregon Coast Community Action ORCCA has pulled local services together to do its annual Point In Time Count, otherwise known as the homeless count.

Tim Foley’s hand emerges from a 1,300 gallon tank of bubbling seawater with a chunk of dripping-wet red algae.

The salty seaweed known as dulse, made waves across the internet when Oregon State University announced they had patented a variety of the protein-packed, fast-growing plant that allegedly tastes like bacon when fried.

Linn and Benton counties maintain more than 400 bridges throughout the mid-valley.

These spans ranging from historic covered bridges to modern concrete and steel structures are a vital part of the regional transportation network, connecting rural residents with population centers and linking lonely county roads to state highways and Interstate 5.

When Linn County Roadmaster Darrin Lane talks about backlogged bridge maintenance issues, its much like the old algebra equation of two trains leaving distant cities, each traveling at different speeds.

As residents of Southern Oregon and Northern California, we are fortunate to live in one of the most biologically diverse regions in North America. Fortunately for us, and for all Americans, in June 2000 President Bill Clinton established the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, using the congressionally vested power of the Antiquities Act, to protect the natural values of this remarkable area.

-Baker City Couple Lobbies Governor to Save 54 Jobs at Local Call Center-

A Baker City couple who employ 54 people at a call center under a state contract are lobbying Gov. Kate Brown to have the state renew their contract to avoid the loss of those jobs next week, but a state official said there are no plans to continue the deal.

Richard and Kathleen Chaves, who own Chaves Consulting Inc., are nearing the end of the first year under contract with the Oregon Health Authority OHA.

Its difficult for any person who has a smidgen of sympathy to watch a herd of deer standing in belly-deep snow, on a day when the temperature wont get out of the single digits, and not feel at least a twinge of concern.

Deer are vastly better equipped than we are to endure such conditions, of course. And hard winters are part of the natural cycle. Yet its instinctive that we ponder how awful it would be if we were in the same predicament.

The Oregon Legislature is again trying to clear the roadblocks to a comprehensive transportation package after failed attempts in 2015.

State Rep. Cliff Bentz, R-Ontario, co-vice chair of the Joint Committee on Transportation Preservation & Modernization, has been working with Co-Vice Chair Sen. Brian Boquist, R-Dallas, and Democratic Co-Chairs Sen. Lee Beyer and Rep. Caddy McKeown to develop a framework to present to the entire 14-person committee in the upcoming legislative session.

During a news conference in December, Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum introduced draft legislation for the upcoming 2017 session. Included was a requirement for police throughout Oregon to collect data on officer-initiated pedestrian and traffic stops, designed to thwart racial or other bias-based profiling by improving police accountability and addressing evidence of bias, Rosenblum said.

Oregon lawmakers told the White House on Friday that its action freezing federal employee hiring for 90 days raises significant questions about having enough seasonal workers to fight forest fires in Oregon and nationwide.

We’ve taken space on this page before to praise the actions of the public works, Oregon Department of Transportation, emergency responders and many battling winter conditions. However, we would be remiss if we did not once again point out the terrific work these crews accomplished during the past few weeks as an epic series of snowstorms slammed the local area.

Hood River Countys unemployment rate fell to an extremely low rate in December, ranked third best in the state, according to a report by Dallas Fridley, regional economist for the Oregon Employment Department.

The county’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate decreased by 0.3 percentage point in December to 4.0 percent. That puts Hood River behind only Washington County’s 3.8 percent and Benton County’s 3.7 percent. Over the year, Hood River County’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell by 0.6 percentage point.

The nation and Oregon have both entered periods of uncertainty as a result of the November 2016 general election, well known local economist John Mitchell told the Portland Business Alliance at its annual economic forecast breakfast on Tuesday.

Sheriff Andy Long said, The long and short of it is, all Oregon Sheriffs Offices cannot ask about someones immigration status, based on Oregon Law. After President Trumps executive order I have been asked several times about sanctuary cities I have reaffirmed we would be following the statute, as we have always done since its inception.

Oregon is stepping up its outreach efforts in response to the Trump administrations decision to scale back advertising that encourages people to sign up for health insurance before the close of open enrollment.

The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services plans to invest an additional $100,000 to expand its online marketing to reach people statewide ahead of the Jan. 31 deadline to enroll in plans

Participation in our elections is a fundamental right for citizens in our democracy. As Oregon’s secretary of State, it was my obligation to ensure that all eligible citizens in the state that are members of a political party or no party at all can cast a ballot in our elections the same obligation that all secretaries of state or commonwealth hold.

It is with this motivation that I hold up the success of Oregon Motor Voter the first program of its kind in the country as a model of automatic voter registration for the nation.

Northern California and Oregon farmers who lost irrigation water in 2001 for the sake of fish are plunging into a climactic courtroom battle for tens of millions of dollars in compensation.

Years in the making, the trial set to start Monday in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims near the White House involves a lot of money, but thats not all. For other Westerners, too, it can have broader implications, clarifying what the government may owe for water steered away from crops toward environmental protection.

Please contact the State Library of access to this premium story from the Lund Report. library.help@state.or.us , 503-378-8800

Medicare and Medicaid add up to more than two thirds of hospital charges in the most recent figures, with small coastal hospitals Peace Harbor and Lower Umpqua Hospital most reliant on these programs

Government programs pay a large and growing share of Oregons hospital bills, and were billed for two thirds of all medical charges in the first half of 2016, with insurance and individuals billed for only a third of those charges, according to a Lund Report analysis of hospital payment data.

The president and provost of the University of Oregon on Sunday issued a statement saying they are “troubled” by the Trump administration’s executive order on immigration, adding the institution is “proudly committed” to welcoming students from “all countries.”

Fifteen attorneys general, including Ellen Rosenblum in Oregon, issued a joint statement Sunday condemning President Donald Trump’s executive order banning U.S. legal permanent residents and visa-holders from seven Muslim-majority countries from returning to the United States for 90 days.

Oregon’s 2017 Legislative session begins Wednesday. The stakes have perhaps never been higher:

Will lawmakers fill an unprecedented $1.7 million budget gap by cutting services or raising taxes? Will they ease congested highways and repair unsafe bridges, or punt again on a transportation package? Can they help residents struggling with high rents and low vacancy rates? And how will they deal with massive changes coming from the new administration in Washington D.C.?

Oregonians who want to aid foster children but cant commit as full-time caretakers are getting a message while the state grapples with a deficit of foster parents: You don’t have to become a full-time parent to help.

On January 26, 1700 an orphan tsunami hit the coast of Japan. The term orphan tsunami refers to the absence of a parent earthquake. Unknown to the Japanese at the time, there had been a quake. On the other side of the world. At the Cascadia subduction zone. The Oregon’s Office of Emergency Managements Althea Rizzo says they’re using the anniversary to promote disaster readiness.

EagleRidge High School students, teachers and administrators gathered for an assembly Monday morning to discuss National Choice Week, the worlds largest annual celebration of opportunity in education.

Throughout the week, students at EagleRidge are encouraged to reflect on their time at the school and recognize that it is their choice to attend, not the schools, EagleRidge Director Donald Peterson said.

A U.S. Forest Service program that infused rural communities with millions to make up for lost timber revenue is drying up, and that means Oregon will see a 90 percent reduction in the payments that have kept critical services afloat in many counties since environmental rules curtailed logging nearly 30 years ago.

-Oregon did the right thing in backing off gillnet ban on the main Columbia River-

The Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission is to be commended for recognizing that a 2013 policy dictated by former Gov. John Kitzhaber to kick commercial salmon fishing off the Columbia River has failed.

The formalities are pretty much out of the way, and so the members of the Oregon Legislature will gather this week in Salem to begin the 2017 legislative session.

They gather amid warnings that this session will be particularly challenging, and certainly all indications point in that direction: Legislators must figure out ways to plug a $1.8 billion budget shortfall for the next two years, and that gap could grow considerably depending on what happens on the federal level with the Affordable Care Act and other initiatives.

Southern Oregons Kalmiopsis Wilderness shelters unique plants and the headwaters of several wild and scenic rivers. Oregon’s congressional representatives introduced bills to better protect adjacent roadless areas. Two proposed nickel mines could affect water quality in the North Fork of the Smith River, which flows out of the Kalmiopsis and harbors healthy wild steelhead and salmon populations.

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are asking the federal government to begin the process to bring relief money to farmers and businesses in Malheur County who have lost income and property due to extremely heavy snow in the past few weeks.

Despite an 8 percent increase in general fund revenues, Gov. Kate Brown and some lawmakers say the state of Oregon is facing a $1.7 billion budget shortfall in the 2017-19 biennium. In her inaugural address, the governor blames more than $1 billion of the shortfall on the state’s choice to expand Medicaid and other taxpayer-funded insurance. The Census Bureau estimates that about one in four Oregonians are in the state’s Medicaid program.

A Forest Service program that pumped millions of dollars into rural communities has expired and with it the advent of sharply reduced revenue sharing timber harvest payments for more than 700 counties and 4,000 school districts.

The Eugene School District was the only one of Lane County’s three major districts in 2016 to see a greater percentage of students graduate from high school in four years, compared with the previous year, newly released district data show.

-For the past seven years, TriMet has declined to apply for federal grants that could have covered the full cost of the clean-air retrofits, including labor.-

Despite its green credentials, TriMet has long operated one of the dirtiest big-city bus fleets on the West Coast, a review by the Portland Tribune shows.

Greater Portland’s transit agency has continued running the most polluting type of diesel motors long after other agencies added filters to their buses to curb cancer-causing emissions. Portland’s air is among the most diesel-polluted in the country, and the annual tally of diesel-related premature deaths statewide may run as high as 460.

Portland’5 is one of four venues managed by Metro, Portland’s regional government, along with the Oregon Convention Center, the Oregon Zoo and the Portland Expo Center. Combined, these publicly owned visitor venues supported nearly 10,000 jobs and generated about $969 million in economic activity in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties last fiscal year.

Oregon’s graduation rate inched forward in 2015-16, but the result still leaves the state miles from its goal.

The states graduation rate increased about 1 percentage point from last school year, to 74.83 percent, according to data released Thursday by the Oregon Department of Education. Oregon’s goal is to have a 100 percent graduation rate by 2025.

Starting in 1873, Oregon elected its superintendents of education. That changed in 2011, when the Legislature gave that title to then-Gov. John Kitzhaber and allowed him to appoint a deputy superintendent of education. The move was part of Kitzhabers grand reorganization of education.

Now with Kitzhaber gone, some lawmakers have considered reverting to an elected superintendent. The Senate Education Committee filed Senate Bill 219, which would make the superintendent an elected office and enlarge the State Board of Education with a mix of elected and appointed member.

We talk to former Oregon Department of Environmental Quality director Dick Pedersen about the Trump administrations abrupt changes at the Environmental Protection Agency this week.

Portland Mayor Ted Wheeler joins us to discuss what it means to be a sanctuary city in a sanctuary state, especially in an era when the federal government has threatened to withhold funding from sanctuary cities.

Oregon Sens. Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley are asking the federal government to begin the process to bring relief money to farmers and businesses in Malheur County who have lost income and property due to extremely heavy snow in the past few weeks.

-Lawyers for the state and for environmental advocacy groups defended a program that has been closely watched around the world as a potential model for controlling carbon emissions.-

Businesses looking to invalidate California’s fee for carbon pollution took their arguments to a state appeals court Tuesday in a case that could determine the future of one of California’s signature efforts to combat climate change.

-Districts seek ways to engage students and keep them on path to a diploma-

The Pendleton School District has a reason to throw its cap in the air.

According to data released by the Oregon Department of Education Thursday, Pendletons graduation rate for the 2015-2016 school year was 83.9 percent, a significant improvement from 74.5 percent in 2014-2015.

In a push-back against state policy on weapons in state workplaces and any Senate bill related to the Oregon Firearms Safety Act, there is a move for counties, including Malheur, to adopt Second Amendment Preservation ordinances.

Its a matter of wait, watch and see what the runoff will be after this spring following the recent snow storms across the region.

According to data from the Natural Resource Conservation Service the Owyhee River Basin currently holds the best snow water equivalent figure how much water is in the snow for Oregon and Idaho, based on data from automatic recording sites.

Communities in Malheur County have not shown a lot of growth. However, as a whole, the county has grown by about 400 people since 2010, according the Portland State University Population Research Center.

Jackson County plans to lay off about 200 workers after it could not reach an agreement with AllCare Health to continue providing mental health services to the organization’s Oregon Health Plan members.

This is the second and final coordinated care organization to sever ties with Jackson County Mental Health. The other local CCO, Jackson Care Connect, began transitioning out of county services this month.

The Medford School District’s graduation rate rose for the second consecutive year, reaching 77.15 percent for 2015-16 and surpassing the state’s graduation rate of 74.83 percent, according to data released Thursday.

This year’s graduation rate marks the district’s highest since the state began calculating graduation rates by cohort in 2008-09. In 2014-15, the district’s graduation rate was 74.95 percent, up from 65.21 percent in 2013-14.

Jackson County commissioners, smarting from the expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument, are turning to the new Donald Trump administration, hoping to win changes in the Antiquities Act that allowed President Barack Obama to expand the monument. While some changes in the Antiquities Act may be warranted, there are good reasons to retain the monument and its expansion.

Jackson County commissioners are hoping President Donald Trump’s new administration and the Republican-controlled Congress will be more sympathetic to their concerns about the recent expansion of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument east of Ashland.

The commissioners plan to ask for a stay on the creation of a resource management plan for the monument, which was expanded by former President Barack Obama a week before he left office.

Driftboaters, kayakers, sailors and others running boats without motors may soon – for the first time – start paying toward their playing on Oregon’s public waterways.

The Oregon State Marine Board will ask the Oregon Legislature to create and fund a new nonmotorized boating program that would help pay for upkeep of boat ramps, other facilities and marine patrol programs heretofore paid largely by fees charged to motorized boaters.

The state Marine Board’s proposal to treat nonmotorized boats the same as motorized ones, including assessing fees, is a reasonable response to the increasing popularity of floating the state’s waterways and will benefit floaters in tangible ways.

Nonmotorized water activity is now equal to or greater than motorized boating, and nonmotorized boaters account for half the boating fatalities in the state each year.

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DHS FINDS ‘SERIOUS SAFETY RISKS’ TO CHILDREN AT ONTRACK (Medford Mail Tribune) A scathing report by the Oregon Department of Human Services into OnTrack Inc. found children in the Medford-based organization living in “deplorable conditions,” prompting immediate referral of new clients to a different addiction recovery service.

DHS has required that 20 families at OnTrack crisis housing in Medford be moved out and into other living situations after finding instances of child abuse and neglect.

After more than a decade of reviews and consideration, a cleanup of the old Union Pacific rail yard north of A Street in Ashland is expected to start at mid-year.

The project is expected to take a year and will cost more than $1 million to excavate about 20 acres of contaminated land. Engineers and the Department of Environmental Quality presented the plan to residents last Thursday night at the Ashland Community Center.

Oregon Gov. Kate Brown spent Tuesday morning in Klamath Falls hearing from community leaders about the needs and concerns of those involved in rural entrepreneurship and economic development. Later in the day, her focus was on rural healthcare at Cascades East Family Medicine.

Challenges facing the Oregon Health Plan in 2017 and ensuring health care coverage for children and adults were key talking points for Gov. Kate Brown as she met with a roundtable of physicians at Cascades East Family Medicine in Klamath Falls Tuesday.

We are facing a shortfall in funding for the Oregon Health Plan, Gov. Brown said.

When Oregon’s state House and Senate gather Wednesday to begin the 2017 legislative session, prime among bills to be debated is one on election reform. House Bill 2429 was inspired by perceived political maneuvering within Klamath and Lake counties for Senate District 28 and House District 56 seats during the 2016 primary.

Along with much of the rest of rural Oregon, Klamath County often feels that its out of sight, out of mind when it comes to its relations with state government so Gov. Kate Browns visit to Klamath Falls today is welcome.

There’s plenty that could be discussed the search for new jobs, major differences over social values, the future of state institutions such as Oregon Tech and Highway 97 along with problems shared by all Oregonians, such as the cost of Public Employee Retirement System and the impact that it has on state and local services, for example kindergarten-12th grade education.

Hand to hand came the 51 buckets of water one for each state and the District of Columbia down Main Street in the ceremonial and techncially illegal transfer of water from Lake Ewauna to the A Canal near Klamath Union High School.

In two lines that stretched the length of downtown Klamath Falls and included U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, U.S. Rep. Greg Walden, and many other political figures, the Bucket Brigade and thousands of others registered their protest May 7, 2001, against the federal governments refusal to supply irrigation water to the Klamath Reclamation Project for the 2001 irrigation season.

The recent announcement by President Donald Trumps administration that there has been a freeze on federal Environmental Protection Agency funding of projects has not filtered down to the NorthRidge Estates asbestos cleanup in Klamath Falls.

According to Jennifer Flynt of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the holdup on grants should not slow ongoing work in the state.

On Jan. 1 of this year, there were 274 foster children in Coos and Curry counties with only 136 foster homes available. In the past, creative placements have been made where children were put up in hotels with Oregon Department of Human Services workers, and on one occasion a child spent a couple nights at the DHS office with supervision.

Standing their ground against the city, the Skipanon Water Control District on Wednesday issued a statement describing the Eighth Street Dam as publicly owned and under the jurisdiction of the water district.

Benton Countys unemployment rate dropped to 3.7 percent, down from its revised rate of 3.9 percent in November. That mark was the lowest in the state, according to the Oregon Employment Department, in data released this week.

However, Benton County had 140 fewer jobs than in December 2015, a 0.3 percent decrease in job growth. The bulk of those jobs came in the private sector, which shed 120 jobs.

Linn County continues to recover from the recession, and its unemployment rate dropped to 5 percent in December, the lowest level ever recorded by the Oregon Employment Department, according to data released earlier this week.

The state has county-by-county unemployment information going back to 1990, but Linn County’s mark is likely the lowest for several years before then, dating back to the heyday of local mills, said Patrick O’Connor, regional economist with the Oregon Employment Department.

Ashland’s four-year graduation rate remained stable at 88.2 percent for the 2015-16 school year, down slightly from 89.1 percent for the class of 2015, according to figures released Thursday by the Oregon Department of Education.

-The goal is to avoid a repeat of Dec. 27 incident when 41 elk died after falling through the ice-

Idaho Power Company, with financial help from the public and donations of hay from Baker County ranchers, is feeding about 100 elk to try to avoid a repeat of the Dec. 27 incident when 41 elk died after falling through the ice while trying to cross Brownlee Reservoir near Richland.

The Department of Agriculture reminds livestock producers who suffered grazing losses that occurred throughout 2016 due to drought or wildfire to report their losses and to enroll in the Livestock Forage Disaster Program by Jan. 30.

The program provides compensation to eligible livestock producers who suffered grazing losses for covered livestock due to drought on privately-owned or cash-leased land or fire on federally-managed land, according to a USDA press release.

The variable speed signs are working better than they were when first enacted, but they aren’t the end all, be all. People still need to drive according to the seasons conditions, said Tom Strandberg, an Oregon Department of Transportation public information officer out of La Grande.

Oregon’s legislative session starts on Feb. 1 and the biggest topic will certainly be the budget. Gov. Kate Brown released a recommended budget last month that has everyone in the media gasping for breath because of a $1.7 billion shortfall.

The State of Oregon is celebrating its 158th birthday this year and the event sponsor, the Oregon State Capitol Foundation, invites the community to the party. A celebration is planned 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 11. All activities are free and the public is invited to attend.

When it was announced earlier this month, that President Obama would significantly increase the size of the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Jackson and Klamath counties, Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley proclaimed, Today is a great day in southern Oregon.

Douglas County’s seasonally adjusted unemployment rate dropped from 6.5 percent in November to 6.1 percent in December, the lowest December rate in more than 15 years. December 2015 saw an unemployment rate of 7 percent.

I’ve been watching the unemployment rate, and even statewide its been nicely edging down and its an indication that employment is getting stronger, said Annette Shelton-Tiderman, a regional economist with the Oregon Employment Department.

Something needs to be done about Oregon’s looming $22 billion in unfunded pension liability to public workers and retirees.

Thats the general opinion iterated by local legislators, particularly Sen. Jeff Kruse, R-Roseburg, and Sen. Tim Knopp, R-Bend, who recently sponsored two bills intended to save the state money by cutting back future pension payouts.

A 3.2 million grant from the Natural Resources Conservation Service to local land resource agencies could add more than $6 million with matching funds to the countys economy over the next few years while improving soil health and farm productivity.

The grant agencies are The Nature Conservancy, Wallowa Land Trust and Wallowa Resources.

In a recent meeting someone mentioned that much of the current state budget discussion is based on structural issues revenue growth not keeping up with expenditures but at some point in the not-too-distant future we will be back to having cyclical budget issues.